50 Cent Tweets, Penny Stock Soars

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- 50 Cent has suddenly gotten a bit more measured in his praise for H&H Imports after shares of the company soared Monday following a series of positive tweets from the rapper.

"HNHI is the right investment for me it may or may not be right for u! Do ur homework," 50 Cent, formerly known as Curtis Jackson, tweeted after Monday's closing bell following up an earlier so-called short, timely message that definitely had a disclosure feel to it. "I own HNHI stock thoughts on it are my opinion. Talk to financial advisor about it."

H&H owns TV Goods Inc., a direct marketing company that sells products primarily through the use of infomercials. The company was founded by Kevin Harrington, who has appeared on the ABC television show "Shark Tank," where inventors and entrepeneurs pitch products and business ideas to potential investors. Products currently listed on the TV Goods' Web site include BrightFeet slippers described as "nightlights for your feet" and PumMagic, a line of pumice-based cleaning products represented by wrestler Hulk Hogan.

Last Thursday, TV Goods, 50 Cent and a private company Sleek Audio announced plans to partner up to enter the wireless headphone market. TV Goods acquired worldwide marketing rights to a new product line of Sleek Wireless Hybrid and Tunable audio products, which 50 Cent, who owns part of Sleek Audio through his company G-Unit , would then endorse. As part of the deal, 50 Cent made an equity investment in TV Goods and TV Goods made an equity investment in Sleek Audio.

The press release describes 50 Cent as a "significant minority shareholder in TV Goods" and said it would eventually be offered a seat on its board.

That investment saw massive appreciation on Monday as shares of H&H Imports jumped 290% to 39 cents, boosting the company's market capitalization to around $82 million, a jump of roughly $60 million in a single day. Monday's volume reached almost 9 million compared the issue's usual churn of less than 30,000.

That jump and the press attention it received likely explains the change in tone in the rapper's tweets as he could be on iffy ground overly praising a public company in which he has an investment.

TV Goods and H&H Imports merged in May 2010, according to the combined company's most recent 10-Q filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Nov. 15. In that filing, the company said "a cash balance of approximately $198,000, working capital of approximately $474,000 and an accumulated deficit of approximately $3.3 million" as of Sept. 30.

The company also noted that it's operated at a loss since its inception and that it continues to do so, facts that raise "substantial doubt" about its ability to continue as a going concern.

A number of the rapper's tweets related to H&H Imports and TV Goods include links to pictures of the headphones, and he appeared at the Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas last week to promote the venture.

A check of 50 Cent's Twitter page, which features a picture of a gun with a silencer on it and the words "Quiet Please!" in the background, on Monday no longer displayed an earlier tweet that told his roughly 3.8 million followers H&H Imports was "no joke get in now."